I’m based at 2 Bedford Row which is internationally renowned for its expertise in cases involving white collar crime and serious fraud. I’ve fought many cases of fraud and money laundering, such as MTIC fraud, excise fraud, diversion fraud, long-firm fraud, benefit fraud, immigration scams, mortgage fraud and serious cases prosecuted by the Serious Fraud Office.
My experience enables me to get to the heart of a case. I’m an analytical yet creative thinker who combines an approachable and easy manner with a determination to succeed.
The following are just some examples from the range of the many cases I have been involved in:
R v K: Operation Berg Meeker and Operation Bygone: a trial that spanned 9 months in 2018 involving complex allegations of immigration and tax fraud (cheating the Revenue) which was said to have netted £13million. I represented a trainee barrister said to have organised and run the fraud who left the UK to stand in the Bangladesh general election.
R v K: Defended in this Serious Fraud Office (SFO) prosecution of a defendant accused of conspiring with others to obtain hundreds of thousands of pounds of investment from American doctors in respect of a factory that never existed.
R v K: My client was alleged to be a professional money launderer who advertised his services on the internet. Huge amounts of unexplained income went through bank accounts associated with him. The case involved complex banking evidence and asset tracing.
R v A: Represented a client accused of disguising criminal property by importing stolen high value cars. The case arose out of a massive investigation into the funding of terrorism. The defendants exposed a loophole in UK vehicle licensing process that enabled stolen cars to be registered in the UK.
R v B and six others: Six defendants were charged in relation to mortgage frauds. My client was charged with twelve offences of fraud and false accounting. The prosecution were forced to drop the case against his client on the second day of the trial after my legal submissions and disclosure requests.
R v S: A case involving the sale of investment properties obtained by mortgage frauds. It was alleged that the frauds were committed over a period of many years and used to build up a substantial property portfolio.
R v M and others (Operation Carina): Successfully defended in a £50 million alcohol diversion fraud. It was successfully argued that the prosecution was an abuse of process by Customs and Excise. The case was seen as a key attempt by Revenue & Customs to prosecute organised alcohol smugglers after the critical Butterfield Report critical report into its procedures. The collapse of this six-year prosecution called into question a series of forthcoming trials when the defence showed that HMRC failed to reveal fully its links with the operators of bonded warehouses, that HMRC lied to the court about the reasons for delays in bringing the case (which they had attempted to cover up), that there was likely to be missing evidence that could undermine the reliability of witnesses, and that evidence was compromised because it may have been given from witnesses indemnified from prosecution. There was also a London City Bond connection.
R v S: With Simon Mayo QC , I was instructed by Bark & Co to contest Confiscation Proceedings following the defendant’s conviction of an MTIC fraud and money laundering case. The prosecution sought £3.4 million from the defendant. They got £13,000.
R v B: Represented a woman who admitted insurance fraud by faking her death in Pakistan to obtain £2.2 million life assurance. I was instructed to mitigate and obtain a favourable sentence.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1348882/Rozeena-Butt-faked-death-Pakistan-claim-2m-life-insurance.html
R v M: Cigarette smuggling and money laundering: I represented a man accused of a large-scale conspiracy to import lorry-loads of cigarettes from Europe. The defendant wanted to plead guilty and I secured him a favourable sentence, and avoided Confiscation Proceedings. The client then instructed to represent him in a 110-kilo cocaine smuggling case in which his defence was that he believed he was smuggling cigarettes rather than cocaine (he was found not guilty).
R v N and others: My client was accused of transferring criminal property. She was alleged to have used her position as an accounts payable clerk to set up false customer accounts to which she wrongly transferred more than £500,000. Following my mid-trial legal submissions, the prosecution changed the charges. I then successfully argued that the prosecution had no case on the new charges. The case against my client was halted and a not guilty verdict was recorded. The two co-defendants were subsequently convicted.
R v R and others: Leading prosecution counsel in a six week trial of six men involved in a ‘long firm fraud’. The defendants set up sham companies, and created fraudulent accounts, to falsely obtain credit accounts and credit ratings. They then ordered goods valued at nearly £1million on credit. They then disappeared with the goods which they never paid for. All but the most minor participant were convicted.
R v M and others: Successfully prosecuted 5-week ‘long-firm’ fraud which involved the setting up of a series of false companies through which £600,000 of computers were fraudulently obtained. Some of the criminal property was sold on Ebay.
R v R: A 5-week money laundering and possession of criminal property trial in which the defendant used cloned credit and credit card details obtained from petrol station employees to obtain hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of designer goods. Police discovered an Aladdin’s cave of goods in his house. He also fraudulently applied for a mortgage.
R v SV : £42 million money laundering trial. Nick was Instructed as the lead counsel representing one of the principal defendants (the book-keeper) in a 4-month trial at Croydon Crown Court.
Proceedings arose from Operation Converge, a 10-month National Crime Agency investigation into people trafficking and money laundering which led to 17 people being found in a van in Holland, and the discovery that the gang had smuggled more than £42 million out of the UK into Dubai. There were complex legal and factual issues but the client was acquitted of all but one minor charge and as a result was the only defendant to avoid imprisonment. All other defendants were convicted.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12064115/Three-women-gang-16-people-traffickers-snuck-42M-drug-cash-Dubai.html